


They Stay Down Deep

by Skoll



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age of Ultron compliant, Character Study, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton's Farm, F/M, I love Natasha too much to let the Age of Ultron characterization of her slide, Natasha had a fucked up childhood, Natasha-centric, Red Room
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 04:38:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3882613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Chitauri invade Earth, it seems like people are seeing monsters everywhere.  Everyone's a little frightened, a little on edge; Natasha's no exception.  Unlike most people, though, Natasha's response to fear is to throw herself into it.  She has the Red Room to thank for that.</p>
<p>And after all, the Hulk is hardly the first monster Natasha Romanoff has faced down.</p>
<p>(Or: The fic where I roll with Natasha's shitty characterization in Age of Ultron and try to fill in the gaps and make it make sense, from the Red Room to the lullaby.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Stay Down Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! It's been a while since I've published anything, and I'm just dipping my toes back into writing, so be gentle, okay?
> 
> Depictions of the Red Room draw a little on what the Agent Carter series showed of it, a fair amount of what Age of Ultron showed us, a very little on the comics, and a lot on my artistic license. If you think I got something wrong, feel free to let me know! The title of this story is from Giselle's song of the same name, which seemed appropriate.
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter: Brief mention of suicide, and descriptions of child abuse (not graphic, but I am covering the Red Room).
> 
> I probably shouldn't be publishing this yet, but oh well. Here it is. I hope you all enjoy.

There were never any lullabies for Natasha Romanoff.

…

When she is very small, the handcuffs at the head and foot of her bed frighten her. She doesn't understand why she and the other girls must be bound down each night—do they think she'll run? Even then some part of Natasha knows better than to think she could make it away safely. 

She resists the handcuffs, at first. In most other respects she is obedient—she doesn't have the tantrums the other girls sometimes have, and she follows instructions when they're given to her—but she balks at the sight of the handcuffs, badly enough to make it her first rebellion. It hurts her to force her muscles still after a day of dancing, hurts worse on the days they practice takedowns and chokeholds for hours, and she doesn't like to feel restrained. 

Her minders have very little patience for this. The first time she struggles against her instructor's hand, squirming away from the cold metal, her punishment is swift pain that shocks her into quiet obedience. Her new bruises and the memory of the pain dissuade her from fighting for a few nights—but she is young, and foolish, and later she tries again. Her second punishment is...worse. ( _Cold close dark loneliness, walls that press in and she forgets the feel of daylight on her skin, her stomach clenched tight and painful in her core, she aches._ ) After that, she doesn't try again.

“See, Natalia,” her instructor says, and fastens the handcuffs tight with the same clever fingers that caused her such pain, “I said you would learn.”

And then she is nine, and ten, and eleven, and she grows to understand the handcuffs. They become a comfort to her, even. At night, when she is locked away, she does not need to think about her newfound skills. What does it matter that she knows how to break a man's neck, when she cannot get free to put her legs or arms around him and twist tight? Why should she need to think of the easiest way to silence each of the other girls in the room, when she is held down? (There were thirty other girls, once; now fewer. Natasha lays awake at night sometimes, glancing up towards the ceiling and listening to them breathe. How many of them are really sleeping? How many of them lay awake, like her, staring into the dark? How many would kill her if they could? She wonders.)

( _Later she is fifteen, and sixteen, and seventeen, and she loses even that small comfort. No handcuffs could stop her now. If they come in her sleep, while she is chained, Natasha will still kill them._ )

…

There are always injections, always procedures. This one to give you strength, this one to make you heal faster. This is an anesthetic, so that when we ask you to fracture every bone in your hand, slowly and carefully, you will do as we ask. ( _The bones will grow back stronger, Natalia. Be grateful for the anesthetic. Next time you will have none._ ) 

The graduation ceremony should not frighten her. It shouldn't. She's had so many procedures, so many injections—she is not afraid of doctors. She is not afraid of pain. Besides, Natasha doesn't want children. They're small, noisy, they're distractions from her purpose. Natasha has no time to care for one, and what would she do with one anyway? Teach it ballet? Teach it to fire a gun? It's better this way, it's...neater.

She should not be afraid.

…

For years, Natasha is like a bullet: efficient, deadly, and with no mercy for anything that falls between her and her target. Like a bullet, she does not control her path—they say go and she goes. This man must die, Natasha; this woman must speak a secret she will not freely tell; three targets, Natasha, two at the north window, one sitting in the south corner, here is your rifle. Her work is messy, but she is a weapon, so why should she worry about the blood on her hands? It's not her purpose to think, just to act.

...

“I'd really like to not kill you,” the man wielding the bow says. He is sweaty, and bleeding—he ought to be. Natasha may be beaten but she'll never let anyone say she went down without a fight. “Are you gonna let me do that?”

“No,” Natasha says.

The man smirks, and says, “Worth a shot.”

Five days later, pinned down and half-dead and delirious from blood loss, Natasha looks up at Clint—Clint Barton, a man so incredibly persistent and irritating and completely unlike anyone else Natasha has ever met that she genuinely cannot understand him—and asks, “Why won't you kill me?”

“'Cause I've got a better plan,” he says, his words barely audible as he gasps for breath. “And I'd like you to hear it out.”

She ought to sneer, and push away the pain, and pull herself together to fight again. She ought to say no, and find some way to kill herself before he can try extracting information from her. 

She ought to be dead.

Instead she spends three days in a small hospital with the man who will one day be the best friend she's ever had, listening.

…

It takes Natasha three years working with Nick Fury to finally break free of the last of the Red Room's training.

Clint's the one who finds her, bent over a SHIELD toilet. He stands there, silent, while she spits the last of the bile in her mouth into the water. “You want something?” she asks, her voice rough and angry.

“Do you?” Clint kneels down beside her, and brushes the hair away from her face. It's...Natasha is surprised to find the gesture comforting. Comfort's never been a very large part of her life, and to find it here and now, after all she's done, feels...unnerving. Undeserved, maybe.

“There was this woman,” Natasha says, slow and steady, with the taste of vomit on her tongue. “In Prague. The widow of a politician. They thought she might know something her husband had kept secret. She was grieving, left alone with a small child. She didn't have any family of her own.”

“You don't need to tell me this, Tasha,” Clint says. Something about his voice is familiar, and after a moment she places it as the deliberately calm tone he uses in the thick of battle. It seems out of place here, set against the white tiles of an innocuous, mundane SHIELD bathroom.

“I didn't hurt her,” Natasha continues, a little more loudly. “I didn't need to. She was so alone. I thought she might need a friend like me.” The sarcasm is stronger even than the taste of sick in her mouth; her cheeks feel wet. “I didn't know she was pregnant when the mission started. Maybe my handler decided not to tell me, I don't know. She was such a sweet woman. Just before my handler pulled me out, she said she wanted me to be the baby's godmother. Me, a godmother. This poor woman thought she could depend on me, and I—”

Her stomach heaves, and Natasha is sick again, dry gasping heaves that make the muscles of her chest ache. Clint stays by her, holding back her hair, and eventually Natasha realizes he's making small shushing noises under his breath. She spits, clears her throat, says, “I hated it. I hated what I did so much, and I never even realized. That's what they taught us, to push it down and push it away, to obey.”

“You were brainwashed.” Clint's voice is determined, but that's not surprising. He's always been Natasha's greatest defender, right from the start.

Natasha laughs, and it hurts, a dull ache building around her ribs. “That's not an excuse. Do you know how many people I've killed, Clint? I don't. I can't even remember.” It's not the blood that haunts her, or the faces of those she's killed. If she's going to be honest, it's not even the death itself that bothers her. No, what makes Natasha sick now is the numb precision of it all. She knows she hated the work—why can't she remember feeling that? Why didn't she feel anything at all? “For years, they made me—”

“Hey,” Clint says, “hey, you got out. You broke free of them, and you're doing something good now. You're trying so hard, Natasha.”

She doesn't ask him if it'll ever be enough—that's a question he can't answer, and even if he could, she's not sure she'd want to hear it. Natasha runs her tongue around her mouth, tasting vomit and remembering the mirrored walls of the Red Room. She spits.

…

Natasha's always known how to cook—at least enough to keep herself alive—but it's Laura who teaches her how to make food because she wants it. Laura's a strange woman, but then she'd need to be to put up with Clint. She hates cooking but loves knowing everyone is well fed; she'd be happier out doing chores on the farm, but instead she drags Natasha into the kitchen and teaches her how to make old family recipes, chocolate chip pancakes, anything she thinks Natasha has missed out on in life. 

Laura's solid, undemanding companionship is something Natasha has never experienced before. It's...good for her. By about the third time she meets Laura, Clint starts joking that Laura's stealing his best friend away. They both know, of course, that Clint has a place in Natasha's life that can't ever be replaced—that's hardly worth saying. Instead Natasha asks Laura why the hell she married Clint in the first place, and Laura laughs while Clint staggers back, one hand clenched to his heart. 

She's honored, that Clint would share this vulnerable part of his life with her. Clint never needs to ask her to keep this secret—she knows, instinctively, that this is worth protecting.

The old guest bed in the farmhouse may creak, and the night wind may rattle the shutters, but Natasha can honestly say she's never slept better in her life.

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far, and enjoyed, please drop me a note. I always love hearing from readers, and after a hiatus as long as the one I've been on, feedback would be great.
> 
> Also, always feel free to come talk with me on my tumblr: http://skollwolf.tumblr.com/


End file.
